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============= Synopsis
You are a witch's crow familiar, headstrong as anything but still young and untested.
What starts as a normal day soon takes a harrowing turn when your pacific caretaker, Valmai, is struck down by a terrible hex of mysterious origin. Now it's up to you, little bird, to cure your caretaker and discover the hex's source.
Are you up for the task?
============= Other Info
The Familiar is an Adventuron parser-choice hybrid, submitted to the 2023 Edition of the SpringThing. This game was designed for beginners in parsers.
I alpha/beta tested this game.
Status: Completed
Genre: Puzzle, Fantasy, Parser
CW: /
Note: some animal violence (by other animals), illnesses and death
============= Playthrough
First Played: Alpha+Beta Tester
Last Played: During the SpringThing Festival
Playtime: around 2 good hours (I am slow)
Rating: 5 /5
Thoughts: Save the damsel in distress illness, but you're a crow.
============= Review
The Familiar follows Fran, a familiar in the form of a crow, as she embarks on a quest to save her witch mistress who has succumb to an illness. Through a series of puzzles and exploration, Fran uncovers a secret plot and fights for her mistress's life.
Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.
I am a sucker for a good simple puzzle and a cute story, and this is no wonder this game made it to my top list of the SpringThing this year (well, it was already a favourite of mine while I was testing it). From its clean and simple aesthetic, the gorgeous pixel art for each "room", to its delightful characters, The Familiar is such a well rounded game.
Obviously, playing as a crow, you are limited in your abilities to help your bedridden mistress (it is a magical wonder you can get her a blanket). Still, the puzzles are constructed in a way that would be doable for a crow to solve (and you a smart little one). Cawing your way into town to get attention, pecking people to move them out of the way, or picking up and dropping objects in the right place, you manage to acquire all needed ingredients to save the witch.
And you are not alone in the process. Meeting first Hazel, a mouse familiar whose master perished not long before the game, who will tend to your mistress while you fly to fetch the ingredients (turns out, it's not the flu but a curse, whomps...). Then a trio of NPCs in town: Miroger, who's bother has died, Cecile, who needs help writing and sending a letter to her lover, and Frederik, who knows a good deal when he sees one. Each helps you getting one ingredient in exchange for a small favour. Finally, the evil wizzard's owl coming at the 11th hour to stop Fran.
But how does it end then? With a happy ending, for course! This is still a feel good story at the end of the day, one that makes you feel satisfied when the ending screen comes around. The day is saved, the mistress is healed, and you made some friends along the way.
What I really appreciated from it was how inclusive the game was for beginners (or terrible parser player like me), as you are limited to 5 verbs (TAKE, DROP, LOOK, PECK, CAW), there is an available tutorial to teach you the controls, and a thorough walkthrough is included in case one is stuck.
I wanted to give a special shoutout to the artwork, considering how long it took to make 30+ pixel art headers, many of those heavily detailed. Those truly gorgeous small pieces of art enhance the atmosphere of the setting, from the cozy home, to the luscious forest, and the different and vibrant parts of the industrialised city. If it all felt like a pixelized version of a Ghibli movie, that was on purpose (the author confirmed the reference).
Anyway, I'm going back to fly after that darn letter...
I'm a writer, interactive fiction game developer, speedrunner, and occasional VTuber from Brooklyn. Check out my sites and projects below.
Visit My Personal Website
My Interactive Fiction:
RECLAMATION (Play on itch.io; Adventuron; 2022) -
🌟Second place in the Interact-IF Story Jam 2022!🌟
You awaken from a month of cryosleep to discover that a missing research vessel has suddenly surfaced in the deep. There are no signs of life. You are now tasked with investigating the nature of the ship’s disappearance and the fate of its crew.
Can you do it before time runs out?
Super Mega Tournament Arc! (Play on itch.io; Twine; 2022) -
The Super Mega B.O.X.ing Tournament at the Super Mega Dome is your last shot to pay off your debt with the city's most notorious gangster.
Do you have what it takes to fight your way to the top?
GroggyQUEST (Play on itch.io; Adventuron; 2021) -
A personal portfolio in the form of an interactive text adventure. For a brief time was the landing page of my primary website.
Mousetrap was super engaging! I can’t wait to see how it fleshes out. What sorts of inspiration do you draw on for your writing?
Aw thank you so much, groggydog!!
I'm a really scattered person with lots of unrelated special interests. So, for me, inspiration comes from all over the damn place.
In general, myths (ancient and modern), religion, and philosophy are some of my biggest sources of inspiration (ex., the cave scene in Mousetrap). Plus, literal or figurative depictions of monsters/monstrosity are present in pretty much everything I do. Movies, shows, anime, books, etc. are also big sources of inspo for me. In particular, Mousetrap drew a lot from Saw, It Chapter Two, and Disney movies. I think DC's The Scarecrow and that one level in Arkham Asylum impacted the nightmare stuff as well as classic RPG Maker horror games like Ib, The Witch's House, and Misao. Dimension 20 Fantasy High: Sophomore Year had a big impact (and one of the two new nightmares in the next update is directly inspired by a character from that show). Finally, I think that some of my favorite Victorian sci-fi stories like the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Invisible Man, and Frankenstein had some impact on Mousetrap too.
However, Mousetrap is really unique for me in that everything is first and foremost based in personal experience (I've semi-jokingly described it as the closest I'll ever get to memoir). When I came up with the idea, my goal wasn't to create a horror game based on a premise like Saw, etc., it was just to tell the story of my time working at Disney World twisted to make it fictional (and due to my experience, it naturally evolved into surreal horror). In addition to the literal life experiences it draws from, all my dominant fears, anxieties, and insecurities are present in this story. The characters are made from splintered fragments of myself and memories of people I've known through the years (particularly those I knew during that period of my life). I've felt lost for a long time and like I lost a large part of myself, but writing Mousetrap has allowed me to feel like I've reclaimed my own narrative and, with that, regained some of what I'd lost.
So, uh... Sorry, that got a bit heavy. But, yeah. For me, Mousetrap is really unique in terms of inspiration. It's not unusual for me to base themes, plot lines, or characters on things I deal with, experiences I've had, or people I've met; but I almost feel like I lived Mousetrap and this is just me taking my internal experience and sharing it with others.
Okay, that's about all I'll bore you with 😅 And sorry for taking so long to respond, it took me a while to get my thoughts in order. Thanks again! 💜
You are a corporate drone tasked with purging poetry from CORPOTECH's Database of Subsumed Cultures. But when a mysterious interloper hacks into your console, you're faced with an escalating series of requests which put you in direct opposition to your corporate overlords and on a collision course with the sublime.
Play through the game's events in STORY MODE
Create poetry at your own leisure in FREE PLAY MODE
Push your creativity to its limits in CHALLENGE MODE
The Neo Twiny Jam (@neo-twiny-jam) is an interactive fiction game unranked jam where participants could not write more than 500 words per entry.
You can find every submitted piece on the jam's Itch Page.
=============
ᕁ᙮ᕁᕽᕽ CozmoPets ᕽᕽᕁ᙮ᕁ by groggydog
Entry - More by groggydog - @groggydog
Tamagotchi... but make if IF
... and kind of meets Pokemon too.
CozmoPets is short and simple. Care for your pet, watch it grow, play some games, and get an ending. There are four pets to find and three endings to get, which depend on your actions.
(I think the mini-games are random? Whether you win or not is by chance?)
The graphics and animations are sincerely delightful! I starved my pet, gave it unhealthy food, destroyed its psyche... Overall, had a fun time!
